Who eats grapefruit at a pancake house? Actually, who eats grapefruit anyway? You know what happens when you order grapefruit? You pay three bucks for an orb of sour water pustules on which you must perform delicate surgery with a weird, serrated spoon to excise each tiny bite full of kill-me-right-now. This is currently my […]
The first time we sent our children on a trip without us (or any other relative), it was to a weeklong camp near a mountain lake. Our sons were ten and seven years old. Some were surprised we’d let our younger kid go, but he was ready for an age-appropriate camp program like this. Both […]
One morning last week, I was washing my hands in the bathroom sink, the timing of which prompted someone upstairs to yell and pound on the wall. Our water heater, probably like most residential heaters, delivers water of the precise temperature requested to only one person at a time, with preference to whoever most recently […]
When I Googled “One Day in Calgary,” I found a website or two with helpful tips for the person whose aim is to cram a whole lot of stuff into a teensy time frame. It’s become our modus operandi to do what we can to experience an entire city in one day. We’re busy people. Sometimes a day is all we’ve got. We had […]
I admit I’m not feeling much into the running thing lately. And here I just signed up for another half marathon. This one’s in April, and I have to tell you if the registration wasn’t almost as arduous as the actual event, I might not have. That makes more sense the better you know me. […]
The other day I entered my son’s bedroom on some errand or another, and realized something important. It had to do with the olfactory impact of enclosing an adolescent and his Axe body spray in a small space with a fish tank and an only halfway clean lizard terrarium. I realized my gag reflex has returned. I’m […]
First, regardless of the title, let’s just get this out of the way: there are too many made up words with which one can describe what’s been going on around here, but probably shouldn’t. To wit: Snowpocalypse, Snowtastrophe, Snowstruction, Snowmageddon, Snowlamity, Snowlocaust, Snowfandango. Maybe some of those were cute after the snow started coming. But then […]
It’s that time when we’re supposed to reflect and set goals for the New Year. Or if you’re a member of the more cynical set, it’s time to ridicule resolution-makers and people who take up all the parking spots at the gym until February. Depending on the year, I could go either way. I was looking […]
A little trivia about this blog: It started as family travel journal. Turns out, when you take a couple of kids around the world, you may leave grandparents skittish about the lack of daily contact, even if they weren’t terribly helicopter-y before you talked about getting on a plane. It morphed into a sort of […]
“Don’t you just get more and more excited as it gets closer to Christmas?” This was the start of a conversation over scrambled eggs yesterday, December-the-very-first, with our exchange student, Anna. Since I don’t talk much before 8 am, my only reply was to stare at her over my coffee mug, contemplating her sobriety. Then […]
